Tech Tidbits from the Digital Kids Conference

March 13, 2017

Note: This is an extended version of the March 13, 2017 edition of RaugustReports.

The 2017 Digital Kids Conference, held at Current at Chelsea Piers in New York on February 20, 2017, focused on the intersection of technology and kids’ media, entertainment, and marketing.

Here are some of the takeaways of potential interest to the licensing community:

Teens and tweens rely on YouTube. Streaming video is the go-to entertainment medium for Generation Z (ages 8-15), 61% of whom say they use streaming channels, especially YouTube and Netflix, most often, according to research firm KidSay. That compares to 26% who rely on traditional TV channels. In 2013, those numbers were reversed.

The reasons for the change are twofold, according to Terence Burke, Kidsay’s SVP of research and editor-in-chief. First, kids like the control streaming gives them and, second, many of their parents have already cut the cord, giving them fewer traditional options.

Streaming is also important from a marketing perspective. When making a purchase decision, 7% of tweens and young teens say they follow the recommendation of friends. But 67% say they trust the opinion of influencers familiar from YouTube or other streaming channels.

Young people also love Snapchat. It’s fun and ephemeral, they like the storytelling, they can be themselves, and they can create their own content in their own way. “There’s autonomy, control, and self-expression, in abundance,” Burke says. Marketers do best on the platform if they “see [users] as collaborators, not consumers,” he adds.

It’s all about the story. “People know us through our stories and not our toys,” says Kenny Davis, chief marketing officer of GoldieBlox, the STEM-focused building kits for girls. He says 51% of U.S. consumers are aware of the brand, which operates within a small niche in the toy industry. From its launch in 2012, the company built this following through free exposure in the press and then on YouTube and Facebook, speaking first to parents.

When the company finally took its storytelling to children in 2014, it did so through an app, which generated 1 million downloads almost immediately and still has 60,000 active users. It then made a 16-episode series of streaming stories—the first time it paired with a professional production company—attracting 3 million views. It now has a chapter book series with Random House and is shopping an animated TV series.

“The challenge is, you don’t write the story, you evolve with it,” Davis says. “We’re starting to spend now, but we have five years of experience telling our story within our community. And it’s not the same story now that we were telling five years ago.”

It can be tough to be creative and COPPA-compliant. Tinybop creates kids’ educational apps and has 12 titles on the market, all for the iOS. Many of its apps, which allow kids to “create stuff, try it out, see if it works, and share,” according to COO Youngna Park, face creative challenges due to the restrictions of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

There is a videogame creator, for example, where users have made thousands of games. Initially they weren’t able to share what they had spent dozens of hours putting together, because COPPA doesn’t allow them to reveal their names, post user profiles, or look at other users’ details. A cumbersome email system was set up to enable some sharing under parental and company supervision. “Kids love that they can share, but it’s clunky for the kids and for us,” Park says.

The fact that the app can’t include in-app purchases has business implications, and there are limited possibilities for engagement through relatively rudimentary tools such as stickers and iMessage. Kids can play games, as long as their parents maintain control.

“Creativity and sharing means community, and that runs against COPPA,” says Park.

Children need a meaningful reason to use a fitness device. UNICEF Kid Power launched a wearable device that, like other fitness bands, records steps taken. The difference is that each time users reach a certain milestone of activity, a food packet is given to a severely malnourished child. Online content, with celebrity involvement, gives the kids evidence of the accomplishments that have occurred due to their efforts.

The initiative addresses two issues: 1) that one in four kids in the U.S. is inactive, and 2) that one in four kids worldwide is malnourished.

The result: Kid Power is the world’s most used wearable device for kids, with 200,000 Kid Power team members on board as active users, 1 million expected in 18 months, and the brand ranking as the number-two wearable brand at Target (competing against the likes of Samsung and Apple). Users are 55% more active on an average day and spend 44% more days achieving their fitness goals than kids using wearable devices without the charitable purpose, and they stick to the device over time. Meanwhile, 5.2 million food packets have been delivered, saving the lives of 30,000 severely malnourished kids.

“We’re not a tech company,” says Rajesh Anandan, SVP of UNICEF Ventures, which oversees Kid Power. “We’re in the meaning and purpose business.” Anecdotal evidence of the importance of the mission: In user feedback, three different children made the comment, “Every time my band vibrates, I feel like a superhero.”

You have to experience it to believe it. Virtual reality is an intuitive technology for kids, and the best way to introduce them to it is in a social setting, according to Dan Ferguson, EVP of digital interactive strategy at digital and experiential agency Groove Jones.

He reports that there are 3,000 VR arcades in China, and mall-based experiences are starting to appear in the U.S., including at Chuck E. Cheese and, soon, at Dave and Buster’s. “VR is much more fun when you have two or more people inside with you,” he says. “So we turn it into competition.” An e-sports game that allows users to play in VR mode, where people can watch, will be rolled out at e-sports competitions this summer.

“Kids instantly get VR,” Ferguson says. “There’s no learning curve.” He explains that when kids first try the technology, they want to tell people what they’ve experienced and have other kids as spectators while they play. As they explore, they look everywhere and examine every detail. That contrasts to adults, who tend to simply look forward when they’re in a VR space.

The Digital Kids Conference is sponsored by Digital Kids Media.